Expression® Web Design
Folder List Task Pane
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The
Folder List task pane is probably one task pane that you will have open all the
time. It allows you easy access to the files and folders of your Expression
Web website. The example to the right is a from Expression Web - Small Business
6.
File Icons
You will see different icons in the Folder List Task Pane, both for files and folders. The file icons can vary on your system depending on default program you have set up to open that specific file. You can see some examples of icons below
- This icon might represent an ASP file (Active Server Page) (usually .asp file
extension)
- This icon might represent an ASP.NET file (usually .aspx file extension)
- This icon might represent your
Dynamic Web Template (DWT) (usually .dwt file extension)
- This icon might represent a GIF file (image) (usually .gif file extension)
- This icon might represent your "home" page. This can easily be changed with Expression
Web by right-clicking on the file and choose the "Set as Home Page" option.
Keep in mind that even though Expression Web (or FrontPage) thinks the file is your
home page, server settings might need to be changed to reflect this page as your
home page. See
Naming Your Web Pages for some information.
- This icon might represent an HTML or SHTML page (.htm, .html, .shtm, .shtml file
extensions)
-
This icon might represent a JavaScript file (usually .js file extension)
-
This icon might represent a JPG file (image) (usually .jpg or .jpeg file
extension)
-
This icon might represent a PHP file (usually .php, .phtm, .phtml file
extension)
-
This icon might represent a file with the .sitemap extension
-
This icon might represent a text file (usually a .txt file extension) - an
example would be the
robots.txt file
-
This icon might represent an XML file (.xml file extension) - an example would
be an
XML Sitemap for search engines.
If any of the icons have a pencil on them (
),
this usually means that that specific file is opened in the Expression Web
program.
Folder Icons
If the folder has a plus (+) sign beside it (
)
- this means the folder contains other folders or files. You can (left) click
on the plus sign to expand the folder to see the other folders or files. You
can also (left) double click on the folder icon to open the folder.If the folder has a minus / dash (-) sign beside it (
)
- this means the folder is open
and any folders or files in this opened folder should be seen in the Folder List
Task Pane.
The Right Click Menu
If you right click
on a file name, you have many options that are available to you. You can
open the file with Expression With. The "Open With" will offer you a
couple of different programs to open the file based on the file extension and
what you have set up on your operating system. For example, a text file,
you might be able to open the file with Expression Web (as text, html, or css),
Notepad, or maybe even Excel. You can preview the page in a browser, but you might need to Site - Site Settings. In the Preview tab, you can choose "Preview using website URL" which should open the web page in a browser locally. Or you can choose "Preview using custom URL for this website" and enter your domain name (http://www.loudexpressions.com). This will have the file open basically on the server without you switching to another program, entering the address in the address bar, etc. It will save you some time if you rely on seeing your pages on the server.
You can also choose to "Publish Selected Files" which will publish (or FTP) that file to the server. This might save you some time if your website is fairly large and needs time to check all the files against the local files. If you choose "Don't Publish", you might notice a red X in the icon (
)
- this means that if you publish or synchronize your website, this particular
file will not be published.
Changing File Names
You can easily change a file name by right-clicking on the file and choose Rename. When you do this, you will see the entire file name highlighted (unlike when you try to Rename a file through Windows Explorer, only the file name is highlighted and not the file extension - saving you potential problems if you accidentally change the file extension).
But
don't worry - Expression Web has something built in to help you out.
It will usually ask you "If you change a filename extension, the file may become
unsuable. Are you sure you want to change it?" If you choose no, the
file name will not change. If you choose yes, the file name will change to
the name you entered. 
If,
for some reason, you do not have Expression Web managing your website with the
metadata, you might get another error message: "Renaming a file or folder will
break any hyperlinks to it in the current Web site. To avoid this
problem, on the Site menu, click Site Settings, and then select the check box to
manage the site using metadata files. Do you want to continue?" If
you choose no, you will be able to change the site settings. If you choose
yes, the file will be renamed and any relative paths to the file will not be
updated.
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